The Pitfalls of Intermittent Fasting | Podcast #233

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hey guys, it’s Dr.
Justin Marchegiani here. We’re gonna do a quick podcast on intermittent
fasting. The do’s and don’ts, who’s it good for, who
isn’t it good for, oh man one meal a day. Let’s dive in Evan, so off the bat, we see
a lot of patients that have adrenal issues, that have gut issues, that have a lot of hormone
issues, and there’s a lot of stuff on intermittent fasting, being like this magic bullet that’s
out there and I see a lot of people fast. Things can be a good thing but there’s no
magic to not eating anything, I mean you have some systems that up regulate regarding recycling
and anti-aging pathways but you still got to get nutrition into your body so I want
to break down a couple of myths, I want to talk about who intermittent fasting is good
or not good for and what kind of, you know, address if I’m a clinical protective. Most people talking about it they aren’t clinicians,
they aren’t dealing with the stuff at a clinical level, they’re just providing information
and letting the chips fall as they may. Evan Brand: Yeah, maybe you should define
intermittent fasting first. How do you even say, yes this is considered
intermittent fasting, this is not considered intermittent fasting, what do you make of
that because some people say, well, I just don’t eat breakfast because I’m too busy,
I mean are they technically doing an intermittent fast or not. How do you classify it? Excellent, really, really. Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Good point, so intermittent
fasting is you’re compressing your feeding window, so it could be 16 hours of not eating
– eight hours of eating, that may look like you’re eating between noon and 8:00 p.m. right
,it could be an 18 by 6 where you’re eating between 2:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. so you compress
it to a six hour window, it could be a 20 hour and then a four hour eating window, maybe
you have a meal at 4:00 p.m. or let’s say 3:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. right or 7:00 p.m.
you could do that so that those are your big kind of compression windows and then there’s
the O mat which is one meal a day where you’re doing just one meal once a day and you’re
having like a 20 plus our feeding window, does that make sense? Evan Brand: Yeah, it does, it does so there,
there are some benefits in terms of hormones. It’s crazy to me that the human growth hormone
goes up, I don’t really know the mechanism or the why behind this, I know that your HGH
production does go up when you’re in a minute fasting, I wonder why though because to me
the fasting is more of like a stress response so maybe, it’s part of the stress response
the HCA goes up we know that you know, you may get a little bump of cortisol too right
to kind of put you in that hunting mode like, hey you’re not eating, are you not successfully
hunting, it’s time to go, so you may get a bump of cortisol but the HGH, I just think
it’s interesting. Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well there’s a, um,
a glucose suppression test or an HGH suppression test where they’ll actually give you a shot
of glucose and then they’ll actually watch growth hormone drop, so though actually they’ll
give you glucose and then they’ll test your growth hormone after they giving you glucose
and they’ll see your HGH drop, so I think a lot of it has to do with the surging glucose
and or insulin acutely does knock down your growth hormone. I think that’s part of the reason why keeping
insulin low does increase growth hormone, now in that stage of the game though a lot
of bodybuilders still use insulin post-workout and they primarily use it to open the cell
up so they can drive more nutrition and more amino acids into the cell, aka the muscle
cell after workout, so I dunno insulin is anabolic and is used anabolically but stimulating
insulin acutely via glucose and food can also drop growth hormone down acutely as well,
so it’s a double-edged sword with insulin, that makes sense? Evan Brand: It does, it does. I would just say the important thing to remember
with intermittent fasting too is you still have to focus on good quality nutrition, like
if you wake up and you’re only eating six or eight hours through the day but all you’re
eating is some like paleo protein bar and then like a green smoothie that’s, that’s
not enough. We still have to remember you still got to
get good quality nutrition, good quality calories. I see a lot of people where we’ll look at
their food journal and let’s say they are doing intermittent fasting, they wake up and
they’ll have a smoothie, which is like you know protein powder in an almond milk, that’s
it for their supposed lunch and then they’ll do like a chicken salad, it’s like, no way,
you’re not gonna feel good on that. Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly, yep, so in
general somatostatin, which is we’re gonna be released by so somatostatin inhibits growth
hormone release in response to growth hormone, releasing hormone to stimulating factors such
as low blood glucose growlin binds to receptors of the somatotropin, the pituitary that stimulates
growth hormone and potentially stimulates growth hormone so from what, how, I’m reading
this is basically that low blood glucose is gonna have a stimulatory effect on growth
hormone release. Therefore, higher blood glucose is going to
decrease that feedback loop. Evan Brand: Okay, yeah. Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hypoglycemia, a potent
stimulus to secrete growth hormone, so hypoglycaemia produces an abrupt sustained rise in the level
of growth hormone so it makes sense if these low blood sugar states or lower blood sugar
states can increase growth hormone, it makes sense if you’re doing the opposite and you’re
spiking your blood sugar, that it would negatively impact growth hormone. Evan Brand: Well, we know with other hormones
too like ghrelin, that’s your hunger hormone. Ghrelin normalizes when you’re doing intermittent
fasting and we talked with so many people where they notice that they are just not as
hungry, you know you feel like you’re just gonna starve to death but you just don’t,
you’re not starving and I guess part of that’s probably because you’re producing ketones,
would you say. Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, ketones have
a strong appetite suppression effect. My big concern is this, right, here’s my big
issue just kind of putting it out there so number one are you a healthy individual. Okay, if you’re a healthy individual and your
symptoms are relatively under control and I know that may not be a good marker for health
because you may still have some health and balances with your thyroid or autoimmunity
or gut and you may still be symptom free, right, but let’s just use, hey I’m feeling
relatively good health wise, I’m symptom free but I think doing more of these intermittent
fasting things can be helpful, number one. Number two, it also depends on how stressed
you are during the day because your body needs nutrients to run. It needs nutrients to run. Now you’re gonna get caloric forms of energy
just by releasing fat that you can start burning for fuel but that fat is not B vitamins, that
fat are not nutrients so for and foremost. You’re not gonna get adequate levels of nutrition. Number two. We know people even in fasting states. Let’s just use the the British sailors from
Europe to coming to the new world. I think in the 17 and 1800’s they were called
limeys. Why were they called limeys? Because they would basically be on these trips,
coming overboard they had a lot of nutritional deficiencies. They would get scurvy so they basically, their
capillaries would dissolve, so to speak because they didn’t have enough vitamin C and they
would they be chewing on limes the whole trip because they found that limes would help the
vitamin C and prevent their capillaries from rupturing from the lack of integrity, from
the lack of vitamin C. Essentially scurvy, so they needed vitamin C so there’s a there’s
a level where just fasting and not eating enough calories eventually bite you in the
butt because you’re not getting nutrition in. There’s eventually that balance and my other
balance is, people say, well your nutritional needs go down when you’re fasting well I get
that because you know ideally your body when you’re in a fasting state, it’s down regulating
your metabolism, right, so if you’re in a fasting state, you can go into PubMed and
type in hypo caloric state or hypo caloric and low thyroid hormone or low triiodothyronine
or increase in reverse t3, the scientific literature is very clear that thyroid function
will drop, your overall metabolic rate will drop in response to a local or ik environment
reverse t3, which is your inactive thyroid hormone that clogs two receptor sites. Where your thigh will go increases, so there’s
this balance of, yes, your thyroid hormone, your metabolism will drop, your metabolic
needs will drop, but is that necessarily a good thing, because we want a robust metabolism,
you don’t drop your metabolic needs and then still feel incredibly robust. Now if you already have healthy thyroid function
to begin with, it may not be that big of a deal, maybe you’re on the top 25% of the reference
range and now you start moving mid range, but what if your bile, what if you’re already
a little bit below mid-range and then now you start dropping way below? You see what I’m saying here, so it’s a slippery
slope people talk about your metabolic needs drop when you’re intimate and fasting or doing
these various techniques, but why what’s happening and what are the ramifications of that and
if we already have thyroid issues and I already have blood sugar issues, we already have adrenal
problems and hormonal issues, that that could actually be a stressor to you, people don’t
remember, people forget that fasting is actually a stressor to your body because you’re not
getting nutrition in. The people that benefit the most from fasting
are people that number one have really irritated gut. Their digestion is really poor so not digesting
foods as much helps a lot. They’re avoiding a lot of food allergens. Number two and they already have a relatively
healthy metabolism because you can still be on a ketogenic Paleo template and you can
still get a lot of the benefits of fasting, which is the lower insulin. The growth hormone and still get adequate
nutrition and still have at least two meals today. My recommendation is at least two meals a
day, I’ll pause there and let you kind of give me your thought process, I don’t want
to go too deep on so we chat a little bit more . Evan Brand: Sure. No, that was all great. I just wanted to point out for me that I had
so much stress just working with clients and moving from house to house and all that, that
when I looked at my blood my reverse t3 was too high. I was actually up into the low 30s which is
really high for reverse t3 and I was really, really cold. Now I haven’t retested my blood to confirm
that the reverse t3 has gone down but I just wanted to have my comment that I’ve personally
experienced what you just mentioned which is that if you have your stress bucket already
full you and I are busy go, go, go, go, go during the week, my bucket was already full,
I couldn’t afford to skip a meal so I’m on three meals a day and I saw it on the blood
work to confirm and I felt it my hands, my feet, you know, I had the, the circulation
issue some of that was related to mold and all that nitric oxide but I do know that my
thyroid, I could definitely feel just the weakening of myself if I were to do just a
protein shake with breakfast and not an actual solid breakfast like you’re talking about,
I was just nutrient depleted based on the amount of stress, my seesaw was unbalanced. Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly, about my
typical breakfast though I’m doing, I like doing an iced coffee, I feel like I get very
good cognitive benefits with some caffeine and some coffee, and I also add in butter. I add in collagen and I add in MCT oil, so
number one, I’m bumping up my ketones first thing in the morning. I’m getting adequate calories and I’m getting
a good whack of amino acids as well so I have that good, of course, I’m taking a good multi
support pack as well so I’m getting some extra vitamins and minerals and then I hit up the
good fats and the ketone precursors then, uh, maybe I’ll also sip on some celery juice
just to get some extra potassium and B vitamins, so there’s that you can go into it fasting. I mean, I have no problem with it, I’ll typically
pick one day a week where I’ll just do a coffee and then I won’t eat til 2 or 3 o’clock, I’ll
try to do that one day a week. I find a lot of people are taking intermittent
fasting and they’re making it their lifestyle and I can’t tell you how many people I see
that are chron- that chronically skip meals and have blood sugar issues, and have adrenal
problems and a lot of symptoms – I’m not saying this causes, that but it is a stressor and
the stronger and healthy you are, that stressor can have a lot of benefits if you can overcome
the stress of what it’s causing. If you already have enough, let’s say, stress
balls and your stress bucket that may be enough to put you over the top and I personally find
that a lot of people don’t have the reserves to be able to overcome if you already have
a lot of issues, you can’t fast or starve your way out of it and this is a fine line
where this intermittent fasting thing becomes an eating disorder especially when in your
feeding window you’re not getting enough nutrition and you’re not meeting your metabolic needs
for the day and I think it’s really easy to do that when you’re doing a nomad or you’re
doing one the two meals a day, because now your meals gotta be essentially fifty percent
bigger than your typical lunch or dinner and then number two is if you’re doing a one meal
a day, I mean, good luck eating 2, 500 calories or 2, 000 calories at one sitting. Let’s say, I need 2 500 calories and you’re
under the auspice that well my metabolic needs have dropped, okay we’ll try getting 2, 000
calories a meal, that’s pretty hard. I mean you need a big, big salad. You need a lot of fat at least, maybe one
and a half avocados on there. You need a lot of nuts, a lot of seeds, you
need a really good fatty dressing, you need at least 8 to 12 ounces of protein on there
at least that maybe even 16, so it becomes is really kind of delicate balance and I see
a lot of people that have a lot of hormone issues that are falling into that trap and
are coming in, and it’s not enough to get them over the top. Evan Brand: Yeah, I mean not that I want to
get into calorie counting and all that because I get bored, but I’ll just mention a cup of
broccoli, which is maybe an average serving size 30 calories, so if you have a woman,
it’s like God hormonal problems and she has, you know, a small piece of meat and then a
cup of broccoli as her dinner, it’s like, good Lord, you maybe got five to six hundred
calories. Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah and I’ve seen
a lot of people online there’s dr. Berg he’s another guy that puts a lot of content
out there I think he has a lot of great content but he does he’s a big one meal a day guy
and again you know let’s say you do 10 servings of vegetables okay there’s 300 calories there,
all right, you need 2,000 calories a day so you’re gonna need a ton of fat and you’re
probably gonna need you know I’m I’m 6 to 220 pounds right I’m gonna need probably a
16-ounce steak or 16 ounces of protein in there to get that to get enough nutrition,
I’m gonna need a lot of fat, I’m probably gonna need two avocados cut up, I’m probably
gonna need a really fatty dressing that strange ___[14:42] has a lot of nuts and seeds, so,
but also that’s a lot of food to digest at one time. Evan Brand: That’s true. I think it’s gonna be a lot so you’d probably
need extra HCl and extra it’s still a lot of stuff on your tummy Evan Brand: I’m looking up bison meat. You know, cuz I really like enjoy a bison
burger. Let’s, so let’s say, this one meal a day person
or even a two meal a day person, let’s just make up a story that you did a bison burger
with veggies for lunch and a bison burger with veggies for dinner a 6 ounce bison burger
a hundred and 85 calories, granted you get you know almost 40 grams of protein but not
even 200 calories from it and- Dr. Justin Marchegiani: You put your calories
there, let’s say you, let’s say you do four servings of vegetables with it, okay? Maybe you’re at 120 to 150, I mean, you gonna
have to have a lot of fat, you have to eat a ton of fat. Evan Brand: I think there’s a lot more people
now that we’re kind of like flushing this out together I feel like there’s probably
more people in this space under eating than overeating Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And that’s what I
was saying. Intermittent fasting can be a slippery slope
to an eating disorder, like, okay you know, let’s have a conversation about what differentially
differentiates anorexia and intermittent fasting because I could imagine someone being anorexic
saying, hey look at all the awesome benefits of this, I’m losing weight on this, but obviously,
there’s one person is trying to meet their caloric needs and burn fat while the other
person is burning everything right there burning fat there are bag of bones you know muscle
they’re fatigued you can see their their bones so there’s obviously this fine balance and
I really want to draw a line cuz I’m just seeing a lot of stuff on line where the line
is totally blurred and I could see that being an eating disorder clinically. Evan Brand: Yeah, makes sense. Alright, here’s another example. A lot of people are doing like almond butter,
almond bars etc., maybe this is the snack that they do that for a cup which nobody’s
eating a cup of almonds, that is a lot of almonds, so well give them the benefit the
doubt, maybe it’s a half cup but a cup of almonds around 500 calories. So let’s say you had a handful of almonds
with that bison steak and your broccoli so you’re it maybe 250 and then you throw in
an extra 200 or so with the almonds, you know you’re still less than 500 and if you do that
twice a day you’re still only at a thousand, God that makes me feel like I’m under eating. Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I know, doesn’t it? So that’s why I just I scratch my head being
like, yeah, your metabolism goes down, you need less but why is it going down? It’s going down because your body’s freaking
out that there’s not enough nutrition there and it’s down regulating metabolic pathway
so my generalized advice is if you have health concerns or health issues, get them under
control. First you probably want to start with at least
two solid meals a day and at least one shake or some kind of a smoothie or maybe a bulletproof
coffee or a butterfat coffee with some extra nutrients in it. Maybe some celery juice as a good breakfast,
you’re getting a lot of nutrition calories amino acids you’re starting your day with
a lot of ketone precursors and then two really good meals later in the day a lot of good
vegetables, that age me a lot of good fat, lot of good protein avoiding the leaner meats,
that’s good, or if you have more issues, we may just want to even start with three solid
meals, alright. People that have a hard time gaining weight,
we’re doing four meals a day yeah and then I typically recommend as we get healthier,
we can choose one to two days a week where we do an intermittent fast and let’s start
with a, let’s start with a 12 by 16 by 8 so we eat between 12 and 8 because you can still
get three meals between 12 and 8 pretty easily, yeah, but you don’t have to increase your
meal size that much as soon as you compress it to a 18 by 6 or 20 by 4, now you only get
two meals now you got to eat 50% more in each meal to get your nutritional needs up so I’m
even- Evan Brand: Yeah, it doesn’t make sense. Even at that point though you’re probably
gonna feel sleepy or fatigued or bloated or something by the time you eat that much food,
you know, I mean you’re at that point you’re trying to remedy the digestive issue but in
those cases smaller more frequent three or four a day is probably gonna be better than
two huge ones. Dr. Justin Marchegiani: This is the reason
why people get tired after their Thanksgiving Day meal, I mean, yes there’s a carb issue
but there’s a size issue when you eat so much food there’s a lot of resources your body
needs to do that to digest it and break it down so that’s part of the reason like people
get tired after these big omadd’s, these one meal a day things. This is a lot of digestion that has to happen. That’s a big problem as well. Evan Brand: Yeah, this is an important conversation. You know, like on the surface people may listen
like, man this is boring, just talking about do I eat two meals a day, do I eat three meals
a day, but really this is like your foundation of the gas tank. You know we dig so much into supplements and
adaptogenic herbs and restoring gut issues and eradicating parasites and infections and
all that, but that’s like the, the level 201 or 301 stuff. This is like the 101 stuff where if you don’t
get this right you can’t really advance to the other stuff because your compliance will
fail, because you feel bad or you’re too tired to stay on a protocol. Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. We mean you will keep everyone nameless but
we’ve had some friends and colleagues where we have these little healthy debates about
this topic and they’ve been very pro intermittent fasting which we are but we’re more with
caveats, and one of the big caveats are how many people that we see that have gut issues
gut infections or compromised digestion already, I, 95 yeah and and then now you’re gonna tell
me, okay now, now eat 50 percent more at the meals that you eat so we can compress that
feeding window down. I mean, do you think that puts more stress
on that I justice system or less I mean definitely more? Evan Brand: Yeah it’s well and on also the
difference to is you and I are not just publishing a video here’s the 20 benefits of intermittent
fasting and then you send people on the way we have to find a cup- Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It’s a lot of click
bait and we have direct people go online and they read lots of stuff. Everything can work with the right situation
and the right person but at the same time, everything has a possibility of not working
so then if you’re producing content online it’s great because the people that want to
find it will find it. The problem is when you’re dealing with people
we need to not try to squit put a square peg through a circle hole. We have to understand who may be beneficial
for and who it may not be beneficial for so we have to be able to look at it as it’s not
an on/off thing, it’s who’s the best candidate for this and if you’re not the best candidate
here’s why and here’s what to look for, so if you’re having issues and you’re struggling,
here’s the reason why and it’s not you. You may be doing everything totally right
there may be other things we have to look deeper at like the adrenals like the gut issues,
like low stomach acid achlorhydris or hypochondria, gut infections thyroid issues autoimmunity
so these are all really important things that could be the reason why an intermittent fasting
thing may not be the right fit for you, or the reason why you’re struggling. Number one and number two, if you have things
under control, let’s start with a sixteen by eight and see how we do and then you can
move to an 18 by six and see how you do and just make sure you can get at least two meals
a day, I think the omadd’s a little bit bad because of how much you have to eat at one
time, that’s no different than a Thanksgiving Day dinner personally. Evan Brand: Yeah, it’s just a one big feast. You know it would be really sexy to say everybody
could just do this or that but the nuance is something we have to bring up just because
we’re working with people one on one and if we give them a protocol and they fail or they
don’t get a result we’re looking for then we have to come back and fix it so you know
obviously our perspective is gonna be a bit different than somebody who just makes a blog
article or a video because if they follow our advice, we have to follow up with them,
hey, how did it go, so this is more of like the, the behind the curtain information than
what you’re typically gonna get in an article or a video o podcast. Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100%, ep anything
else Evan, you want to highlight on the topic? Evan Brand: I would just say what you started
to rant on and then you, then you stopped. Which is get the clinical data, get the laboratory
information. You mentioned adrenals you mentioned thyroid,
you mentioned the gut, you know do a good work up on yourself if the world were so simple
that you could just diet and exercise, I mean we would have fixed people’s problems. You know I don’t know 20, 30, 40, whoever
knows how many years ago but there’s so many people still doing paleo or Whole Foods diets
or keto diets or whatever and they’re still miserable. They still, you know, feel bad. They can’t sleep. They’re overweight. They’re depressed. They’re anxious. They’ve got skin issues. So, if diet in the exercise were the variables
that actually gave you a result then we wouldn’t be talking. So get the workup done, if your doctor will
run a full panel or they can look at your ferritin and address anemias as you and I
were kind of talking about off air, look at the thyroid, the reverse t3, get your free
t3 run, get your antibodies run, go above and beyond your standard blood work, use that
data to help guide you and then if you need a practitioner, reach out to Justin, reach
out to me. We love helping people, you know, we don’t
care about whether you pick one of us, we just want you to get better and if you keep
spinning your wheels, you can’t do the same thing over and expect different results so
you’re like, I’m gonna swap, you know, my protein shake that was a pea protein for a
grass-fed whey protein shake, that variable may do nothing if you don’t address your gut
infection, like for me, I continue to lose weight and have terrible skin until I fix
my gut and then finally I was able to bring my weight back up and get my skin health back
to normal and I was eating no dairy and no gluten, still suffered- Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly, and I’m just
curious, people that are listening, if anyone had good responses during intermittent fasting,
just put it in the comments. Anyone that’s had negative reactions to intermittent
fasting, I’m curious as well, put that in the comments. I like to just chat about that briefly just
to see if anyone’s had negative reactions and we just want to look at and be able to
draw the line, there’s a very fine line between having an eating disorder and anorexia and
doing intermittent fasting and getting adequate nourishment, because most people that are
already having health issues, that are reaching out to intermittent fast and they may already
be nutritionally deficient and they may already be moving more into a nutritionally deficient
state even with adequate eating, they’re just not getting enough of that food and that may
further exacerbate the nutritionally deficient state, I mean, think about it, if you’re getting
enough calories, but let’s say your diet isn’t the best, ok, well let’s say you have 25 or
20% less nutrition than, let’s say, a whole food based diet but then now your calories
cut in half or cut in half by maybe 60% of us 40% less but now the food is more nutritionally
dense but, but you’re just eating less of it you may not have enough nutrition in the
food to make up for the caloric deficit does that make sense? Evan Brand: Yes, yes, it does. Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It’s out of community,
this much food, but let’s say this much of it was nutritionally dense, but now you’re
eating this much food and all of it additional, you dense, you still have this gap over here
where you’re missing this nutrition again I’m doing some hand stuff so if you’re listening
on the podcast, you may want to check out the vide, we’ll put the video link below but
either way we have to make sure if you are doing some kind of an if, or intermittent
fasting thing, you are getting adequate amounts of nutrition – Evan Brand: Yeah, I felt more anxious when
I did it. That’s my personal thing when I would try
to either push my breakfast back or skip a meal, you know, I get on the call with clients
I’m working, I’m working, I’m burning, burning, burning, you know, the candles lit. I’ve got this stress in my bucket, adaptogenic
herbs help regulate it but I still did not feel that good, satiated, calm, relaxed. I felt like I was running from a bear so then
when I ate breakfast had a good passengered sausage or a bacon or some blueberries pecans
and I was satiated, that’s stress response was shut down my body’s like, oh okay Evan’s
not starving to death, we don’t need to go hunt today, hunting was successful you can
relax now, so I mean, there’s, there’s the primal wiring system behind all this that
people forget about. Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100 percent, so Kelly,
Kelly Clark or Rob Kelly Clark writes in when I was I had negative reactions, I felt like
I was crashing every morning lightheaded shaky, not able to think quickly and thoughtfully,
I see that a lot but then that writes in intermittent fasting has been great, it’s been helping
my bloating, controlling SIBO, sometimes I think people have an overgrowth simply reducing
the amount of meals help starve them off. I would push back on that and just say, you
may be able to have similar benefit by just cutting out some of the fermentable carbohydrates,
so people that have benefits on the SIBO, I do agree you’re not, when you’re not eating,
you’re starving off some of those microbes, the problem is you actually need to kill some
of these microbes to just the diet change, alone is you’re starving some of them out
but you’re still not. You need to wipe them out too and there could
be some other deeper infections so that’s part of the issue and I think you may also
be able to solve some of that by cutting out the higher FODMAPs and making sure some of
these things are cooked because when you have a lot of poor microbiome issues, you need
fiber to feed good microbiome but when there’s too much bad critters there, that fiber, especially
from the fermentable, the higher fermentable foods the high fat Matt foods, that could
be enough to feed that bad bacterial overgrowth. Evan Brand: This is true. Well, that’s where the order of operations
comes in, right? We’ll see a lot of people, for example, the
lady that I work with that had the worst candida overgrowth ever, was a lady who was drinking
five kombuchas a day and I was like, my god, okay, you took something that could be good,
and you did way too much of a quite good thing. Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And how did she feel? She got bloated after it? Evan Brand: Oh she was terrible bloated, rain
fog, she was drunk. She said, I can’t even focus, she said, I
looked down at my paper, I can’t even see what’s in front of me, I mean, she had a ton
of cognitive issues as well. Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, and if you see
that, that’s a really good sign and you can be on top of it and know those symptoms ahead
of time. Evan Brand: So what did we do? Well, we got rid of the kombucha too completely
and we came in and used an anti microbial protocol based on a stool test that showed
she had not only sky-high Candida but she had a ton of back growth – so it’s like, yeah,
probiotics are cool, yeah, kombucha is cool, good supplement but not in this case, you
gotta, you gotta take care of the bad guys first. Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally, and someone
wrote and, this is a great question is: what do you think about a 12-hour fasting? I think that’s something that’s granting. Everyone should be able to do that, I think
that’s awesome so if you’re looking at finishing dinner around 7 or 8 o’clock you know have
breakfast till 7 or 8 o’clock on the am side. I think that’s great and I think that’s something
that everyone can and should be able to engage in and part of the reason why you can do that
is when you’re sleeping your metabolic needs obviously drop because you’re not moving,
you’re in a kind of hibernation state so your metabolic needs go far less, so you can fast
for that period of time right, so that I think 12 hours is your really good compromise for
anyone with a lot of metabolic issues and then if you’re feeling more up to it then
you move more to a 16 by 8, and then if you’re feeling even better then you can move to an
18 by 6 and you can try it a couple days a week and I just always tell people try to
take your more stressful days and have something in the morning those more stressful days even
if it’s like some celery juice and some amino acids and MCT oil if you want to keep it simple
or a simple smoothie all the way up to bacon and eggs if it’s, um, if you want even more
nutrition. Evan Brand: Yeah, good advice, and, yeah,
good question I’m, I’m on like a 12 hour fast I guess you’d say I eat around 6:30 actually,
no, I’m more than tha,t I’m like 14 hours cuz I don’t usually eat till 8 see. I’m almost at 14 hours and I feel good I feel
solid. There was a time of my life though where I
needed a snack after dinner and that maybe just been my gut issues, adrenal issue, something
like that it sounds like isn’t everybody doing the 12 hour fast but no, we have ton of clients
that are like man 9 o’clock comes around and they’re going and rating the fridge and that’s
because something’s messed up and it could be brain chemistry related to which is a whole
another podcast, it could be serotonin or something that’s causing night cravings. Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I personally find
people that have lunch let’s say around 12:00 or 1:00 and then they have dinner around 7:00
or 8:00 there’s like a seven or eight hour gap that when they eat that dinner, even though
it’s a normal-sized dinner, they went so long there’s a caloric and nutritional, deficit
so they have extra cravings after dinner because they’re trying to fill in this big gap here,
remember that number one, and then all just making sure you’re eating enough protein in
fat and good fibrous vegetables that will fill you up and then try to choose a healthier
snack after dinner, so my big snack as I put my son down and I’m gonna have some unsweetened
coconut yogurt and some fresh berries like raspberries or blueberries, pretty low sugar
so I’m getting protein and getting fat and I’m getting a little bit of carbohydrates
not much, I mean, you can Google a handful of raspberries, it’s probably maybe five or
six net carbs so it’s not much at all but it will give you some good nutrition and it’s
tasty too so it gives you that dessert kind of feel with that would be the negative consequences. Evan Brand: Yeah, a lot of people disrespect
their lunch. We could do a whole another hour on this. I know we got to wrap up but you know so many
people think of their lunches just, let’s get it over with, you know, let’s rush to
the fast food, let’s rush to Whole Foods and stop at the salad bar and shove something
down my face in five minutes and go back to work and I’m not gonna say that I haven’t
rushed through my lunch because I definitely have, but I try to be as conscious as I can
to slow down and chew my food into eat because that’s like your midday fuel, up you know
like if you’re in the race and you pull over to the pit stop and you know the guys are
trying to refill your Formula One car and you take off while they’re still filling the
tank, you’re not gonna finish the race. Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100% and so my lunch
is probably about four or five servings of veggies in a salad, a full avocado, some nuts
and seeds and then like a nice, good dressing, a nice avocado or olive oil-based dressing
and probably eight ounces of protein and that works great and I feel satiated. I feel really, I feel really like get a lot
of nutrition in and I would just say the only people that I would say, the twelve-hour may
not work for thre are people that really have very poor blood sugar issues and their blood
sugar is dropping during the night and they’re waking up. To the people where I would say, you probably
want something within two hours before bed a little bit of protein, a little bit of fat
people, that have very low cortiso,l may need the teaspoon to a tablespoon of honey with
a tablespoon of coconut oil before bed because their blood sugar is dropping, so I would
always say sleep would trump the idea of being in a 12 by 12 fast. Evan Brand: That makes sense. That it does, I was at a point where I had
to do that and now I don’t so that’s, that’s a good sign of progress when you cannot wake
up through the night due to the blood sugar issue, there’s other causes to wake up the
mill tonight- Dr. Justin Marchegiani: But yeah, if you,
toxification issue too could be a gut infection, that’s in cortisol, that’s waking you up so
you know as functional medicine doctors, we understand the potential algorithm and we
go through our checklist of what the possibilities could be. Evan Brand: It’s just funny how we start out
with such a simple topic but then we expand upon, that’s because in the world of, as
you said, like click bait and titles and all that, people just don’t slow down enough to
understand the different variables, and I think it’s very important to slow down and
to hear these different pieces of the puzzle because if you go to ten different people
and you ask them why you’re waking up in the middle of the night, you’re gonna get ten
different answers and so we really want to help you understand the mechanisms behind
things not just like, yeah, you need to take a melatonin supplement. Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah and we’ll probably
put the title of this podcast a little bit clickbait, like the pitfalls of enjoyment
and fasting but I want to be clear, there are people that can benefit and, and most
should be able to benefit, we just want to make sure the people that don’t here’s why
and and if you want to be someone or you think you’re someone that could benefit ,make sure
you go into it with relatively good health because I don’t want you to walk into it and
then have health issues and those health issues don’t get better, maybe yet go backwards a
little bit and you’re not sure why and so that could be a stressor but if you go into
it relatively healthy and that stress starts to accumulate will you at least know that
it’s because of the intermittent fasting. but if you are has strong enough and have
enough you know constitution health wise, then that’s great, you know enjoy those benefits
and maybe do it a couple times a week versus every day. Evan Brand: Yeah, well said. Well, let’s wrap this thing up. If you all want to reach out to Justin, he
works with people around the world and we send labs to your door, except for blood. We send you out to a lab for that but, fit
stool you’re in a lot of the advanced functional medicine testing, we’re very grateful and
lucky that you can do that at your house and you send it back through the mail. You get the reports back, you go over it and
you make a protocol, you get better, so that’s how you do it, that’s the logistics of it. So reach out to Justin at justinhealth.com
and there’s like, I don’t know, hundreds of more pieces of content so if you’re just finding
us and you’re like, man, these guys are pretty cool, I want to learn more, well there’s more
content type in whatever thing you’re looking for on his site. Me, my website evanbrand.com, we do the same
thing, so you know, please reach out if you need help, don’t wait till you’re suffering
in that rock bottom, it’s much easier if you know something’s off and you fix it now versus
like, hey I’m at the end of my rope, we’re generally somebody that you know the person’s
already been to twenty practitioners before they get to us but it’s, it’s a really nice,
sigh of relief for us when we get somebody who’s like, yeah I got some stuff off ,and
then we fix it before they’re at a critical state. Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly and then if
you guys enjoy it and you’re utilizing our services already as a patient or supplementation
or just utilizing some of the products we personally recommend ourselves on our stores,
if you’re not doing that we appreciate you doing it, but if not give us a share, give
us a thumbs up, give us a like, share the content spread. This information, it’s totally free to friends
or family, so they can improve their health and also engage in the discussion, put your
comments below, I love to know what you guys are thinking it gives me something to think
about regarding future topics and your questions really, I think, drive what future content
will be about. When people ask a lot of the same, same things,
I want to answer more of those questions, so it really motivates us to create new and
even better content, that’s inspired to support our listeners Evan Brand: Yep, well, great chat. I enjoyed it and we’ll be back next Monday Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Having great chat
man, you would go on, take care, bye.

I think my obsessiveness and orthorexia and food obsession began or got much worse when I started IF. I don’t mind fasting one every couple of weeks and just have a regular life the rest of the time. But with IF, i ended up overeating, thinking too much of food and obsess over food. And I think it also ruined my cycles. I am not sure about of IF for women. Just fast for a day or two every week or couple of weeks and then have a regular life especially if you are a woman.

The trick with OMAD is you have to break the fast with a green shake and you have to already have a naturally large appetite to be able to eat a lot of food within 2 hours. Really helped me out with my digestion and it's sustainable for me

Time Restricted Eating (16/8) 3 normal meals, has helped my sleep quality which has been beneficial (energy, focus etc..). Longer fasts (20-24hrs) however, were too stressful as my upper gut is still inflammed. Raw cabbage juice from a slow speed juicer (700mls per day) and, 2 x 75mg of zinc carnosine per day, however, has really helped my stomach/upper G.I. irritation (last 3 days I've woken up with NO UPPER GUT PAIN!). Fasting is, for the most part, a reach for another "silver bullet" for chronic health problems IMO. More precise nutrition and treatment is really the answer I think

Intentionally fasted for two years straight by skipping breakfast and have late lunch, hypoglycemic symptoms started emerging lately even following low carb; Also tried OMAD for a few months and started having binge-like behaviors. Probably not the best for some women.

I'm celiac and I have underactive thyroid. I'm doing IF… I have so much more energy feeling less bloated, no brain fog. The only think is that I'm not loosing weight as fast as some do but I guess the fact that I feel much better is a good sign isn't it?!! But you brought out some good points to think about, thank you!

From my experience intermittent fasting, at least over a year now with different eating windows. Overall my body has grown more sensitive to food in general. I am able to lose weight quickly but put it on almost just as quickly. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing. Also if I fast for too long, going into 19-21 hours I will start exhibiting binge like behaviours. (No shit, right?) But yeah that leads to oversized meals, a tired, sluggish me afterwards and it just doesn't do well for me if I'm breaking the fast at the start of my day. Could go on.

I have been reading a lot that calorie restriction is the one reason that everyone that talks about longevity say is necessary to extend your life to 100 years of age. I have been trying to restrict my calorie consumption to 2000-2200. However, I have noticed that I'm deficient in Vitamin E, Selenium, potassium. I reach my magnesium, zinc requirements by taking supplements. How can you do calorie restriction and still meet your bodies nutrients without taking a dozen supplements?